{"id":46,"date":"2011-11-05T14:57:48","date_gmt":"2011-11-05T19:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cartometric.com\/blog\/?p=46"},"modified":"2011-11-06T13:31:25","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T19:31:25","slug":"nikon-coolpix-3100-near-infrared-hack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/05\/nikon-coolpix-3100-near-infrared-hack\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikon Coolpix 3100 Near Infrared Hack"},"content":{"rendered":"

While this\u00a0post is not\u00a0in-theme with the stated goals of the blog, I wanted to save my notes\u00a0somewhere as well as make a URL to show-off for my friends. On the other hand, I’m opimistic my experiment will enable some “eco-minded research”, so perhaps there’s still a loose tether linking this\u00a0back to the GIS community..<\/p>\n

Basically, I hacked my old, 3 megapixel Nikon Coolpix 3100 today so that I could take NIR (near infrared) pictures. The following images serve as a storyboard for the process.<\/p>\n

0:\u00a0 The tools and materials<\/strong> involved include (clockwise from bottom-left)
\n—-> small round-nose pliers (my wife uses these for beading)
\n—-> small phillips head screwdiver
\n—-> butt-end of unprocessed camera film
\n—-> small curve-nosed pliers
\n—->\u00a0scissors
\n—-> electrical tape
\n—-> the Nikon Coolpix 3100 (the pic is post-hack)
\n—-> one depleted roll of hockey tape*<\/p>\n

* The expired roll of hockey tape became the “housing”\u00a0for a\u00a0DIY\u00a0visible bands filter, which you see fitted to the\u00a0front of the camera.\u00a0By some amazing coincidence the cardboard tubing holding the tape fit\u00a0the camera perfectly.\u00a0The “donut hole” was just the right diameter\u00a0to cling to the face of the camera; plus, it was just deep-enough to stay clear of the lens when in use.<\/p>\n

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1:\u00a0 Looking at the guts<\/strong> –I had to pull 22 screws to reach the NIR filter and CCD mount. At this point, I was relatively convinced the sucker was dead meat. The IR filter was just a piece of pinky-nail-sized-glass clinging to a rubber footing. I was able to gently tease the filter from the footing using my index finger.<\/p>\n

Caveat: If you try a similar project, I recommend going to the trouble to illustrate or take notes documenting the locations of screws as you remove them. While my camera still worked without any screws being\u00a0replaced (no kidding<\/em>), once I was finished experimenting, I wasn’t able to replace 7 of 22 screws into the camera assembly. There wasn’t a functional consequence in my case, but I hate knowing that I didn’t get it 100% back together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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2: After\u00a0removing\u00a0the NIR filter, I snapped the camera back together (using ZERO of the 22 screws, expecting to crack it open again shortly)\u00a0and was fully amazed when it powered-on following surgery. Next, I fired-up\u00a0a burner on the stove and\u00a0photographed the hot burner across from its cool neighbor. At this point, without the NIR filter the rear-burner\u00a0coils appear bright-pink<\/strong>, which I expected, but\u00a0the\u00a0distinction between the active burner and the inactive burner was not as pronounced as I hoped. So I decided to incorporate another trick\u00a0revealed by my research..\u00a0<\/p>\n

Note: The coils were not<\/em> visibly red; that is, I could not distinguish the hot burner from the cool burner by sight alone at the time of the exposure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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3: One of the related articles I researched provided the idea of making a DIY Visible Bands Filter<\/strong> out of a slice of unprocessed camera film. So I tried it. I found a nearly-depleted roll of hockey tape to serve as the filter housing. Then I “sharpied”\u00a0the insides of the tape’s cardboard tubing and used elecrical tape to attach a choice cut of unprocessed camera film. As you can see, the end result fit the camera very nicely —I can’t exaggerate how perfectly the depleted roll of hockey tape fit the camera exterior. Would it work?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Regarding the cut of film, you don’t<\/em> want to use the see-through, sepia-toned portion with off-color images, as those are processed negative frames. Instead, you want\u00a0the black, unprocessed portion. I found a good piece\u00a0 with plenty of slack at the butt-end of some old negatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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4: With my visible bands filter attached and\u00a0an enthused state-of-being, I returned to the stove for another experiment. Once again I fired up the rear burner, waited for it to radiate a reasonable amount of heat, then took another pic. As you can see, the hot burner is about the only thing visible in the photo.<\/p>\n

Our stove is white, so clearly my visible bands filter leaks some light into the exposure. However, note\u00a0how dark\/black the forward burner is. Once again, there was no difference between these burners at the time of exposure (at least, as a human can see). This was the sort of result I was hoping to get.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Blurry Images<\/strong>: In my Nikon Coolpix 3100, it seems the stock NIR Filter pulls double-duty, behaving not only as a spectral sieve, but also providing some optical focus. James Wooten’s blog post\u00a0<\/a>provides some insight into this issue noting\u00a0that without\u00a0the NIR Filter\/Glass..<\/p>\n

..the camera will be \u201cnear-sighted\u201d without it. I used a optical glass that has about 85% transmission in the IR and visible range. It helps if you have a friend that cuts glass for a living.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0I happen to have a specific goal in mind for my NIR camera, so I’m not immediately concerned about this shortcoming; however, if I want to take photos with a reasonable amount of visual acuity, I’ll have to resolve this issue at some point. When and if I get around to that, I’ll return to this post and update my notes.<\/p>\n

Related Pages<\/strong>: Each of the following sites povided some form of inspiration or insight, so\u00a0I wanted to log them along with the article–<\/p>\n

http:\/\/4photos.de\/camera-diy\/index-en.html<\/a>: Many, many links devoted to camera repair, modification, and hackery..<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.lifepixel.com\/tutorials\/infrared-diy-tutorials\/nikon-coolpix-5400<\/a>: These people will do the camera hack for you if you’re willing to part with\u00a0some money\u00a0(my Nikon would’ve cost about $200). However, I’m wondering if LifePixel\u00a0may sell the clear optical lens I need to fix the blurred images problem?\u00a0Theirs is\u00a0the first site I’ll check when I decide to cross that bridge. This URL goes to\u00a0their tutorial for hacking a similar Coolpix model, but they had several such tutorials, so if you’re considering your own project, I recommend perusing their site for a tut describing the hack\u00a0on a camera model near to the one in your crosshairs.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.geektechnique.org\/projectlab\/254\/how-to-turn-a-digital-camera-into-an-ir-camera.html<\/a>: Mark Hoekstra does a nice job of presenting his camera hack using several step-by-step images. Read his site in full before you jump head-first into your own\u00a0poject. In the end, I felt my project required going to a similar “component depth”.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.abe.msstate.edu\/~jwooten\/camera\/lense.html<\/a>: The original James Wooten post, cited in the body of my article.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.echeng.com\/photo\/infrared\/faq\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.echeng.com\/photo\/infrared\/wooten\/<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.echeng.com\/photo\/infrared\/hot_mirror_replacement.gif<\/a>
\nhttp:\/\/www.echeng.com\/photo\/infrared\/wooten\/IR_Block.GIF<\/a>: Eric Cheng maintains an interesting site; it was actually through his page that I ran across the Wooten article. Eric did the research and posted some details related to the much-needed\u00a0replacement lens, which I appreciated.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.diyphotography.net\/take_infrared_pictures_with_digital_camera_ir_filter<\/a>: This post inspired my implementation of the DIY visible bands filter. They do a swell job of documenting the materials and steps\u00a0involved in making the filter\u00a0(this is if you don’t happen to have a used roll of hockey tape langushing\u00a0somewhere\u00a0in your gear bag).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.jollinger.com\/photo\/articles\/cheap_ir.html<\/a>: One of the first posts I ran across; however, James’ camera was quite different from mine, so most of the post wasn’t applicable. But, it was open in my tabs when I embarked on this venture, so I’ll cite it anyway.<\/p>\n

Home Energy Audit<\/strong>: So, why would I make an NIR camera if my chief interest isn’t taking unique and stunning photographs? Well I\u00a0hope\u00a0can\u00a0photograph my house from all sides to learn where the structure leaks the most heat. On the other hand, NIR isn’t exactly heat, so this may not correlate in practice, but it’s worth a shot if only for the fun of trying. My wife and I have been thinking about replacing some of our windows, so if we can’t afford to replace all our windows, I thought perhaps we could zero-in on those windows that are costing us the most money. I don’t know if this will work but, once I think it’s cold-enough to try it, I’ll\u00a0take some pics of\u00a0the house in all its raging\u00a0un-eco glory and post them here in the article.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\/Elijah<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While this\u00a0post is not\u00a0in-theme with the stated goals of the blog, I wanted to save my notes\u00a0somewhere as well as make a URL to show-off for my friends. On the other hand, I’m opimistic my experiment will enable some “eco-minded research”, so perhaps there’s still a loose tether linking this\u00a0back to the GIS community.. Basically, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elrobis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}